1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for chilling liquids in containers, and more particularly, to rapidly chilling beverages in cans.
2. Description of the Related Art
An all too frequent occurrence for a beer or soda drinker is to realize, upon opening the refrigerator, that no cold beer or soda is in sight. The typical scenario in this circumstance is to place a warm beer from the closet into the freezer, and wait about 20-30 minutes for it to cool to a desired drinking temperature. Obviously, it would be highly desirable to provide a practical way to cool the beverage in a much shorter time, and without running the risk of the beverage freezing.
Previous designs for beverage chilling devices have not enjoyed substantial commercial success, as is evident by the dearth of such devices in stores today. One such prior art design is presented in U.S. Pat. No. 4,580,405 to F. Cretzmeyer, III, which discloses a beverage cooling device having an ice receptacle with an open upper end. An electric motor is mounted in a track on the exterior of one of the receptacle walls, and is free to move upwardly and downwardly within the track. Ice is placed at the bottom of the receptacle and a beverage can is placed on top of the ice. A suction cup attaches the can to the motor through a shaft opening in the side wall of the receptacle. The motor then rotates the can to frictionally engage the can with the ice. U.S. Pat. No. 4,078,397 to B. Brande discloses a similar beverage container cooling device employing the same principle of rotating a can over a bed of ice. The device employs a side hand crank that rotates the can in frictional contact with the ice. A drawback to this technique, as well to the method in the '405 patent, is that any given time the ice only contacts a limited portion of the container, thereby limiting the speed at which the canned beverage can be cooled. In addition, the frictional contact with the ice limits the speed at which the rotation can occur.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,825,665 to C. Micallef is directed to a wine cooling apparatus including a bottle holder which holds a bottle within an ice and water mixture in a container that is rotatably mounted on a turntable. When the turntable is rotated, the container rotates and fins on the inside of the container stir the mixture and cause it to swirl around the surface of the bottle, thereby cooling the wine. This apparatus, however, appears to be complex and not easily adaptable to canned beverages.